French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met on Monday in Paris to discuss ways to resolve the Euro zone debt crisis. At a joint press conference, Sarkozy said: “France and Germany are determined that what led to the current serious situation in Europe will never repeat. To achieve that goal, the two countries have agreed to a new European Treaty. The best would be to have the participation of all 27 EU member states, but we are willing to settle for 17 participants. The new Treaty will be open to all member countries in the region”.

Sarkozy and Merkel also reached consensus on other measures to ease the crisis, like automatic sanctions if an economy in the Euro zone allows its budget deficit to exceed 3% of its gross domestic product. Countries in the Euro zone area need to apply a golden rule on balancing their budgets and the EU Court of Justice will supervise the implementation of the rule. The two leaders also agreed to promote a European stability mechanism which will take effect next year rather than in 2013 as previously planned.